Eddie Bo 1930-2009: Eddie & His Heavy Friends

NOTE: This mix, featuring the wide range of work Eddie Bo did with other artists (as writer, producer, arranger and often all of the above) was originally featured here in May of 2008. It’s not complete but it does give a pretty good overview of this side of Eddie’s career.
As the week goes on I plan on featuring a few more individual tracks, as well as a new “odds and sods” mix featuring some of Eddies earlier work and a couple of tunes by others that didn’t make it into this mix.
I hope you dig it.
Peace
Larry

Funky16Corners Radio v.49 – Eddie Bo Gets It Together Behind His Many Heavy Friends

Playlist

Roger & the Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet Pts 1&2 (Seven B)
Art Neville – Hook Line and Sinker (Instant)
Candy Phillips – Timber Pt1 (Atlantic)
Chris Kenner – All Night Rambler (Instant)
Eddie Lang – Something Within Me (Seven B)
Little Buck – Little Boy Blue (Seven B)
Mary Jane Hooper – I’ve Got Reasons (Power Pac)
Oliver Morgan – Roll Call (Seven B)
Chuck Carbo – Can I Be Your Squeeze (Canyon)
Bobby Williams Group – Boogaloo Mardi Gras Pts 1&2 (Capitol)
Curley Moore & the Kool Ones – Shelley’s Rubber Band (House of the Fox)
Roy Ward – Horse With a Freeze Pt1 (Seven B)
Curly Moore & the Kool Ones – Funky Yeah (House of the Fox)
Oliver Morgan – The La La Man (Seven B)
Sonny Jones – Sissy Walk Pt1 (Scram)
The Explosions – Hip Drop Pt1 (Gold Cup)
James K Nine – Live It Up (Federal)
Doug Anderson – Hey Mama Here Comes the Preacher (Janus)

To hear this mix, head on over to the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast Archive

Greetings all.

The mix I bring you today – Funky16Corners Radio v.49 – is one that I’ve been thinking about since I started doing these podcasts two years ago. If you stop by here on the reg you already know that I ride for New Orleans legend Eddie Bo in a big way.

Bo, who’s career stretches from the late 40’s up until the present day made many a fine record under his own name (the biggest hit he was ever associated with was his own ‘Hook and Sling’, an R&B Top 10 hit in 1969) it is perhaps fair to say that his biggest mark was made behind the scenes. As composer, producer and arranger, Eddie Bo worked on some of the finest soul and funk records to come out of the Crescent City in the 60’s and 70’s.

Bo had the good fortune (and the smarts) to work with many a fantastic vocalist and perhaps the greatest of all the great New Orleans drummers, James Black.

Back in 2000 when I started the Funky16Corners web zine, I made the music of Eddie Bo a regular feature. When I moved into the blog-o-mos-phere four years later, I continued to salute the man and his work via write ups on individual tracks and inclusion of many of these records in New Orleans funk and soul mixes.

My discovery of Bo’s side projects has been itself a work in progress, digging up new records all the time. Through the years I’ve always wanted to put together a mix of these records that would show the breadth of Eddie Bo’s talents as a discoverer of talent, crafter of records and writer of great songs.

This past weekend, I was thinking about how I was going to lead up to Funky16Corners Radio v.50, which I plan on dropping during this year’s pledge drive, inspirado struck and I decided that in the spirit of keeping the funk flag flying, and the maintenance of forward motion, the time to collect these songs was nigh.

Though many of the records in this mix have appeared on the blog over the years, there are a few killers here that I’ve never shared. I won’t go into great detail, only because I have before, so if you have any specific questions (that can’t be answered via a “Funky16Corners _____________” Google search) ask them in the comments and I’ll do what I can to answer them.

One final note, in the spirit of full disclosure, the recording of ‘Little Boy Blue’ by Little Buck (which employs the same backing track as Eddie Bo & Inez Cheatham’s ‘Lover and a Friend’ is lifted from a tape made for me years ago by a reader of the web zine. I’ve never been able to score a copy of my own, but it’s such a great record I couldn’t put this mix together without it.

That said, I hope you dig the sounds and I’ll be back later in the week with some new discoveries.

.Peace
Larry